Angels don't dig Giant Robots
by Sumo Rabbit
Summary: After Coop returned from Evil Coop's world with that world's Megas, he forgot that Evil Coop didn't get round to making all of the same "modifications" to Megas that he did...
1. Chapter 1

**Living here in Tokyo-3,**  
 **Fighting Angels from afar,**  
 **You gotta stop Third Impact,**  
 **In your giant robot car.**

It appeared to be an average little suburban house in Jersey City, but the sounds emanating from inside belied that. A banshee-like screeching, the word "Coop" over and over again, only gaining in volume as it went on. Down in the basement, the target of the banshee wail, a rotund blonde male was sitting on a couch, hunched over and concentrating on a video game, while in a chair to his left, a redheaded woman mirrored his position, while to his right, on the other side of the couch, a pale young man slouched, engrossed in the conflict on the screen, while offering a running commentary.. Eventually, the screaming from upstairs finally broke through his concentration. "What is it, Ma?"

"I'm going to your sister's place for the weekend. Try to keep the place in one piece, and there's a letter for you."

"Okay, have fun, and smack Skippy for me, thanks." Bringing his full attention back to the screen, he saw the words "Flawless Victory: Player Two" appear. Shaking his head, Coop moaned. "Oh crap, that doesn't count, I was distracted!" "Tough," came the response from the red haired girl sitting in the chair to his left. "She started calling you before you started the fight, if you'd paid a bit more attention, you could have waited."  
From his left the third person in the room snickered. "She's right dude. You snoozed, you losed. To a girl."  
Your point?" Said the redhead, "I've beaten you twenty three times in a row."  
"She's got you there Jamie", laughed Coop.  
The pale guy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, laugh it up Kiva. I'm going to beat you up this time."  
"As if" came the laughing reply.

Standing up and stretching, Coop yawned. "Well, while Kiva kicks your ass for the twenty fourth time in a row, I'm going to check out the mail. Anybody want anything from the kitchen while I'm up there?"  
"Nah"  
"We're good" came the replies, as combat was renewed.  
Shrugging his shoulders, Coop began climbing the stairs, thinking how a couple of years ago Jamie, the self styled king of slackers and the hard as nails and the former Commander Kiva Andru spent all their time at each other's throats, now it was like two buddies just hanging out. Kind of like him and Jamie. Looking up the letter, he sighed.

"Great, E-Z Pass bill." Opening it up, he looked at it, frowning. "By today? Oh come on, this can't be right." Throwing the letter down on the table, he went to the fridge. Opening the door, he reached in and grabbed a container of milk. Unscrewing the lid, he was met with the foul scent of sour milk. "Oh crap" he muttered. "Screw the cereal. I'll have some beef jerky instead." reaching into the drawer, he pulled out a packet.

Empty.

"Hey who ate the last of the jerky?" he yelled. Kiva's voice came up from the basement. "Sorry Coop, I forgot to tell you I finished it earlier. Yeah! In your face Jamie! 24! 24! 24!" Looking to the skies, Coop moaned. "What else could go wrong today?" Clearly Coop wasn't aware of the whole tempting fate thing.

Picture a line along Coop's line of sight, straight up. Thousands of miles up, into space in fact, in the sort of region of space you'd put something into geosynchronous orbit. The casual observer, or indeed NASA, would look at this area, and see nothing. It didn't mean there was nothing there, it was just hidden. Hidden from our reality, a kind of place between dimensions. NullSpace, if you will. And there was something hidden in this NullSpace. Something big, green and menacing.

And alien.

A couple of miles long, and dotted with a multitude of weapons emplacements, a R'Vannith-class battlecruiser, the pride of the Glorft System Navy, sat serenely in the void. However as one got closer, one could see frantic activity in one of its many launch bays. And if one got even closer, one could almost imagine hearing roaring coming from the bridge. Or was it one's imagination?

"COMMANDER! What is the current status of the Eviscerator?" Said commander closed his eyes momentarily, then opened them as he turned to give his report to the demanding voice. "Progress on the Eviscerator is currently ahead of schedule. I estimate it should be fully operational within the hour, sir."  
"Not good enough Commander! I expected it to be ready last night. Do you really want to make me angry?" The commander shrank back, "B-but Sir, it was your estimates that we were follow-" He was cut off by a snarl. "I don't give a damn what you think. If that mech isnt ready within the hour, I'll have your johrbloks. Now get back to work and stop bothering me!"

"Y-yes sir!" As he turned and ran, the commander could only think to himself that Warmaster Gorrath must have gotten out of bed on the right side this morning.

Back on the bridge, Gorrath looked out into the blackness of NullSpace, a feral grin on his face. Before too long he would be avenged. The filthy Earther ape that was the bane of his existence would be crushed by his hand, the Protoype would be back in his possession, and he could finally return in glory to Glorft space.

An hour later, Gorrath began his pre-flight check of the Eviscerator. The commander may have been a spineless Kveltor of a Glorft, but he knew how to follow orders and he knew how to supervide the creation of warmechs to his exact specifications. Looking at the nova cannons, the chainsword and the little surprise he had planned for the fat Earther, Glorath smiled. Something he'd learned from Earth literature, as pathetic as it was, you want to take care of a whale, you use a harpoon. Turning to the commander, Gorrath nodded. "You appear to have done an adequate job, Commander. I'll mount up, you prepare for reversion to realspace in five minutes." Saluting, the commander turned and headed briskly towards the bridge.

Gorrath climbed aboard the mech, strapped himself in, and began the start up sequence. All too soon, he could feel the slight shudder as the battlecruiser re-entered the Earth's orbit. He began mentally adding the time. Two minutes to orbital position, launch, three minutes to the surface of that pathetic mudball, ten minutes for the Earther scum to appear, five minutes to crush him, figure back on board in triumph in an hour.

This was going to be a glorious day.

Fifteen minutes later, Gorrath was thinking to himself "This has been the most inglorious day." as he spun uncontrollably through space in what remained of the Eviscerator's pilot compartment. The surprise he had planned for the Earther ended up causing a chain reaction in the Eviscerator's powerplant. How did the fat idiot figure out how to disable it so quickly? Why did this keep happening to him? His musings were suddenly interrupted by an incoming transmission.

"Sorry for not dragging out the fight like normal, Gorrath, but I'm kind of in a hurry. I need to get pay my EZ-Pass and well, it's more important than you."  
Gorrath just looked at Coop's image, defeated. He couldn't even muster up the enthusiasm for the slightest of insults towards his nemesis. He shrugged.  
Coop raised his eyebrows. this was something new from Gorrath. Where were the bloodcurdling insults, the threats of doom and retribution. He'd never seen the Glorft so defeated. This was quite disconcerting. Coop decided to try another tack. "You know something Gorrath, you've gotten stale. Stale, boring and totally lacking in new ideas. Why don't you go on a vacation? Do some surfing, hook up with some Glorft chicks, party. Heck, if nothing else you mightn't be as cranky every time I kick your ass!"

To his surprise, Gorrath just looked at him, totally lacking in any emotion, nodded slightly, leaned over, and cut the transmission.

Coop looked at his companions. "Ohhkayyy, that was just weird. I was not expecting that kind of reaction from Ol' Squidhead. Wonder what's gotten into him?"  
Jamie snorted. "Maybe he's finally reached his limit. I mean, listening to him cheer after he stuck that harpoon into you, and then those little squawky noises he made when you just ripped the rest of it out from his mech five seconds later, followed by the boom. Talk about having your hopes raised and crushed utterly. Even by your normal Gorrath hope crushing, that was really quick and brutal."

Kiva shook her head. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Jamie might be right."

At this Jamie squeaked "I am?" Kiva looked at him, rolling her eyes. "I've never seen Gorrath so... so defeated. It's like he's given up."  
Jamie thought about this. "So we've beaten him, and he knows it. What can he do? I mean, he's a thousand years behind his time, just like you. What if he goes back home, and finds the Glorft are far less advanced than now? What'll he do?"  
"If he does go back - from the records I saw back in my own time - the Glorft weren't even in space at this point. He'll be a long time trying to get them up to his technology level." Kiva replied.

Coop looked at them. "Hmph, if that's the case, things are going to get a lot quieter and boring round here. I mean, if-"  
"Speaking of boring," Jamie interrupted, "Aren't you supposed to be paying off the EZ-Pass? They do close early on Saturdays."  
Coop looked at his watch. "Ah relax, we got twenty minutes, and we're already in Newark, and traffic ain't an issue, and parking's easy. It'll be quick, in and out, and we'll have the rest of the afternoon for Kiva to make it 25, 26 and 27 and so on." This elicited an amused snort from Kiva, and an outraged complaint from Jamie.

Five minutes later, Megas was standing on McCarter Highway, scratching its head in synchronicity with its owner. "This... is a problem. Where the hell's the office?" Coop asked, looking at a considerable debris field.

Kiva was the first to reply. "You probably smashed it at some point." Jamie laughed. "Yeah, wonder what alien you threw on it?"  
Looking round the wreckage, Coop grimaced. "Aw hell, Zap's Car Wash is gone too. If I find out who did it, I'm gonna smash them." prompting Kiva and Jamie to just look at each other and roll their eyes.

"So what are you going to do now? You've got less than fifteen minutes. then what?"

Jamie asked. "You just wait til Monday, pay it then."

Coop shook his head. "No way man, if I don't pay on time, I get hit with a penalty. And I'm not giving those crooks one red cent more. They have to have another office somewhere. But where?"

"Camden."

Coop turned round. "How'd you know that, Kiva?"  
Kiva pointed down to the sign. "Temporarily closed for unexpected repairs. Please visit our other office at Camden if making payments. Also, if you have a giant robot, please park with more consideration in future."

"Camden? But that's down at the ass end of the state." Jamie pointed out. "There is no way in hell we can make it in time."

Coop sat there for a second, thinking. Then a smile slowly grew on his face. Kiva and Jamie tensed. They'd seen that kind of smile before, and it usually meant trouble.

"Oh yes there is. We can teleport there!"

"What" came the wary reply from his companions.

"Remember how I ended up in Evil Me's dimension? Well, I figured if I changed a couple of things, put in like a safety mechanism to stop me going into another dimensions, I could use it to, like, maybe, teleport Megas from one place to another on Earth. Think how cool that would be." At this point, Coop was thinking of Megas, doing all the things Nightcrawler does, while Professor X looked on approvingly.

He was abruptly brought back to Earth by a punch in the shoulder from Kiva. "Are you absolutely crazy? How do you know it's not going to go wrong? How often do these things end up with us in some messed up fight for our lives?"

"Yeah!" added Jamie. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Kiva is right. You're willing to pull a stunt that could end up with our atoms scattered across the galaxy just to save a few dollars?"

"Hey! I'm not that stupid. I ran a couple of tests, and things went okay. It'll be cool. Trust me!" Jamie shook his head. "Sorry Coop, this time I'd like to get out, want to join me Kiva?" "Okay this is truly an historic day, I think Jamie's right about something again."

"Hey!"

Coop intervened before his passengers could start an argument. "Listen, I did a couple of small jumps, things work well. Worse comes to worse, at least I have our home dimension's co-ordinates now, all thanks to Evil Coop, well, Evil Jamie was the one who gave them to me. "  
Kiva gave him a look. "Like that's supposed to make us feel better how?"  
"Because if we end up in the Evil Us universe, we simply return."

"And what if we end up in a universe that isn't the one populated by our Evil uses?"

Coop thought for a second, shrugged his shoulders. "Uhhh... Ah, don't worry, it'll be fine. Now where exactly is this place?" Bringing up Google Maps, Coop grinned. "Ah, Sixth Street, now all I have to do is just enter the co-ordinates. None of the button mashing that sent me to Evil Me's World, and hit this button, and presto!"

He pressed some buttons, there was a flash of light, and Megas was gone.

 **...Earth Orbit...**

In the meantime, a sullen, and as far as the Commander was concerned, scarily silent Gorrath had been brought back on board. Barely acknowledging anyone as he headed for the bridge, the terrified commander in his wake. Gorrath entered the bridge, went to the main viewscreen, looking down on Earth, and just stood there.

Silent.

After a few minutes, the commander, fearing for his jhorbloks more than ever, caught Gorrath's attention. "Err, Sir, shall I take us back into NullSpace?" Gorrath looked at him in a way the Commander had never seen before. it was as if Gorrath didn't even see him. After what seemed an eternity, Gorrath shook his head. "No."

"But sir."

In a soft tone the Commander had never heard from Gorrath, and prayed he would never hear again, Gorrath continued. "I said no, Commander. In fact, we are leaving this world. We'll return, but not for a while. Set course for Schlegel-56. Immediately."

"S-sir? Schlegel-56? The vacation planet? But why?" The Commander was stunned.

Gorrath looked at him, but for once there was no hostility, no anger, this was totally out of character behaviour for the Warmaster. "It's like this Commander. I'm tired. Tired of losing. Tired of NullSpace. Tired of seeing the same thing day in day out. And I bet the men are tired too. As ridiculous as it may sound, and loathe as I am to give him any sort of credit for it, but the infernal fat monkey was right. We have lost our edge. I'm going to take him up on his advice and take a break." Turning round to the other bridge crew he waved his arm, as his voice started to get louder and louder. "We all need a break, and we're going to get one. We're going to enjoy ourselves on Schlegel-56. And then we're going to come back recharged, thanks to his self-dooming advice, we will crush that pathetic fool, his mudball of a planet, and we will win, and we will return home in triumph and celebrate in the glory of the Glorft." By this point, Gorrath was almost yelling. As he finished, his last words were drowned out by the cheering of the crew.

To his surprise, they were chanting the same thing over again.

His name.

"I understand sir. We've plotted a course,but it will take some months owing to the fact that the hyperdrive has not been functional for some time, and we no longer have the parts to repair it. But we when we arrive at Schelegel-56 we can get some replacement parts, and stock up on some crucial raw materials we've run low on. Bearing in mind their technology will still be well behind what we're used to, I believe we can still jury rig some systems and get it up and running again."

Gorrath nodded. "Very good Commander. Make it so. And then take the men off War Condition-4. We'll no longer be in a combat zone, it's time to go back to normal shifts. I'm going to my quarters. I do not wish to be disturbed for the rest of the day. As you were."  
The Commander acknowledged this with an actual heartfelt salute, rather than one of his more fearful ones, and turned to issue the necessary orders, as Gorrath slinked off to his quarters.

 **...Elsewhere...**

A hot sun beamed down upon some empty farmland. All could be heard were some birds. Then with a strange popping sound, a giant blue robot appeared out of nowhere.

"We're here!"

Kiva was the first to reply. "And where is here? This doesn't look like downtown Camden."

"Or uptown Camden." added Jamie.

"Umm, I'm not sure, the map is on the fritz. We can't be too far away though. Just wait til the wi-fi kicks in, and we'll be fine."

"Real encouraging."

"Damn, it's gotten seriously hot all of sudden." exclaimed Coop, "I could do with a cold soda, anyone else want one?"

"Pepsi" said Jamie. Nodding, Coop turned to Kiva, "What about you, Kiva?" "Water will do please."

"Okay, two Pepsis and a water coming right up." as he pressed the button to open the fridge. Pulling out a couple of cans and a bottle, he looked at his companions.

"Anyone else want ice?"  
Jamie nodded. "Sure."

Reaching behind him, Coop grabbed a couple of plastic glasses, handed one to Jamie, and began pouring the soda into the glass. Then, holding the glass under a hole, he pressed a button. Only thing was, no ice appeared. There was however, a sound of a panel opening, followed by what sounded suspiciously similar to a missile launch. Sure enough, the gang looked out to see a large projectile flying away from Megas.

"Oh, wonder what that one does" muttered Coop, as if to answer him, the warhead detonated, with an incandescent blue glow rather than the expected fireball. All around them, they watched in silence as power lines sparked and caught fire, pylons twisted under the stress, and collapsed all over the place.

"Oh, That's what that one does again."

Jamie was the next to speak. "Dude. What did you just do?"

"Uhhh... I just meant to get some ice for our sodas and... oh. I guess Evil Me didn't convert this Megas's auxiliary EMP missile launcher to an icemaker like I did." admitted a grimacing Coop. "I should have checked that one out before. My bad. But it's not like there's anyone round here. After all, this is the Pine Barrens, right?"

"The Pine Barrens don't have mountains, do they?" was the reply.

"How would I know?" asked Coop.

"Because it's your home state?" Kiva suggested. "Let me guess, you weren't paying 100% attention during geography class, were you?"  
At this point Coop was having another flashback, indeed to that geography class, while Mrs McSweeney was describing the Pine Barrens in all their majestic glory, he was drawing up a proposed paint scheme he'd put on a 1968 Charger.

Spotting a highway, Coop decided to follow it. "That's gotta be the Garden State Parkway, It'll lead us to a city."

"It can't be the Garden State Parkway, never mind mountains, where's the traffic?"

"And not a toll booth to be seen" interjected Jamie. "Which is good, right? especially as we still haven't sorted out the EZ-Pass."

before too long, a city came into view.

"Hey Toto, I don't think we're in Hoboken anymore" mumbled Jamie, looking around at the strange city. "Where's all the suburbs and strip malls, and the Superfund sites?" Kiva, being considerably more observant, studied the highway signs, and came to an educated conclusion.

"I think we're in Japan".

"Japan?" Jamie drawled, "Oh, the land of the cute magical schoolgirls!"

Kiva rolled her eyes, and rolled them even more as Coop began drooling. "Japan? Cool! That means... Kobe beef, Godzilla, awesomest video games... Sweeeeet!"

"It does seem kind of empty, though", Jamie muttered, as in the distance a small plane was flying off, "Where are all the people?"

Looking thoughtful, Kiva debated the possibility, "Maybe they evacuated, but why? Maybe there was a tsunami, or an earthquake... or... Oh no, they must have thought the EMP missile..."

"Or Godzilla!" interrupted Jamie. "Coop, you ready to stomp Godzilla? Or King Ghidorah?"

Coop grinned. "Some big guy in a rubber suit versus the Galactic Combat Championship Federation Champion? Puh-leeeze, this would be a bigger mismatch than Bigfoot versus a Smart car in the State Fair demolition derby!"

Coop, putting his thinking cap on, came up with another theory. "Wait a second! Maybe it's like those towns they built to test nukes on, like the one in that Indiana Jones film!"

"That terrible one with the aliens and crystal skulls?" Kiva said, disbelievingly.

"It wasn't that terrible." Coop retorted.

"YES IT WAS!" was the combined reply of Jamie and Kiva.

Suddenly, something caught Jamie's attention. "Do you see that? Something's moving in that lake! It's... oh crap..." he trailed off, as a giant black spiderlike thing crept through the lake. Jamie remembered seeing something very similar back in Jersey, and what happened afterwards - the think smog, the lack of sunshine, the mini nuclear winter that followed.

Kiva looked and she remembered it too. "Oh no, it's the R.E.G.I.S. Five, it must have reactivated, somehow, and with all that sunlight, it'll have no power issues." She muttered.

Coop's stared at it, and his eyes narrowed, "Oh I remember you, Mr Spider Robot that didn't want me to have a megaslushie, and then had the nerve to try and eat my robot. Oh I remember you and your irritating 'I am the ultra new and improved super-duper Regis blah-blah-blah' all the time... not this time pal. No way Jose. This time it's different. This time it's going to be way different."

Knowing his intentions, Kiva started to say "You know, smashing didn't work the last-" only to be cut off by "I'M GOING TO SMASH YOU TIL YOU ARE SMASHED TO A GREASY SPOT, YOU EVIL MEGASLUSHIE DESTROYING CREEP!"

"COOP!" snarled Kiva, giving him a slap to the back of his head, "SMASHING DOESN'T WORK! REMEMBER? NO SMASHING!"

Suitably chastened, Coop didn't even dare to suggest that they try just a little bit of smashing.

Meanwhile, R.E.G.I.S. continued walking away from them through the city, giving no indication of even noticing them. "What the hell is going on? After the beatdown I put him through last time, he's ignoring me?" Coop muttered in disbelief, "Who the hell does he think he is?"

 **...a few miles away, underground...**

In a city without electricity, three schoolchildren were walking through a darkened corridor. Two girls and a boy. "Are you sure this is the right way? the boy asked.

"Yes, I'm sure! If we can get past this point, we'll be there!" the first girl, a redhead, informed him, in a supercilious voice. The boy responds with a weary "Haven't I heard that four times already?"

Bad move. The girl proceeded to stop, and turn to him. "Picky! you always focus on the most insubstantial titbits!" As she prepared to launch into yet another of her tirades, the third girl, with blue hair, spoke.

"Silence, please."

The redhead turned to her, with a scornful "What now, Wondergirl?"

"A man's voice" was the reply, silencing the redhead.

Sure enough in the distance, a man's voice could be heard, if a little unitelligible, they recognised the voice.

"That's Hyuga!" exclaimed the boy and the redhead. They tried to get his attention, but as he neared, they could hear what he was saying.

"An Angel is approaching! Repeat! An Angel is approaching!"

The redhead and the boy were shocked. "An Angel?"

The blue haired girl stated matter-of-factly, "We can't waste any more time. Let's take a short cut."

The redhead, not to give up the initiative yelled, "Hey! I'm the leader! Don't take any initiatives without my permission! Now where is this shortcut?"  
And off they went, through various ventilation ducts and access corridors. After a while, they come to a door, the redhead opened it, just in time to see what appeared to be a black spike, as it hammered into the ground right in front of her, followed by a black body with eyes, many eyes, staring at her, as it walked past. She got up, swung the door shut, and turned to her companions.

"Well, we've visually identified the Angel's presence. Now, we know we have to hurry."

And off they went to their destination.

Had she waited a few seconds longer, she would have seen a strange blue robot heading in her direction...

 **... Back on the surface...**

Megas had strolled up close to where R.E.G.I.S. had stopped, and now appeared to be squatting over a spot.

"What's it doing now?" Jamie questioned.

"Why do you keep asking me that?" Kiva replied, staring daggers at Jamie. "I know as much as you do. It's just sitting there".

"I'm going in for a closer look." Coop declared. Something's not right about this. I mean, the last time, he busted up my town, tried to eat my robot, and wouldn't let me have my Megaslushie! Now, look at him. He's just sitting there, ignoring me, not trying to absorb anything, or going on and on and on and on about how's he's the all new Regis Philbin, or something. And when did he get all those eyes?" As he approached, Coop realised what it looked like R.E.G.I.S. was up to. "Something is just...oh man..."

Kiva, looking a little disturbed, muttered, "Is it doing I think what it's doing?"

Jamie, with a grin, looked at Coop, and says, "Coop, I think we've caught Regis Philbin with his pants down!".

A matching grin. "Oh yeahhhh..." was the reply.

R.E.G.I.S., or to use its actual name, Matarael, was busy excreting an extremely corrosive acid to open a path down to the Geo-front, when it could hear a tremendous amount of banging and crashing coming from down below him. Unbeknownst to Matarael, the three schoolchildren from earlier had finally reached their destination, got into some giant robots of their own, and were on their way to attack it, when they encountered the acid. The redhead, one Asuka Langley Soryu, leading as was her way, bore the brunt of the acid, damaging her Evangelion Unit-02, and forcing the EVA pilots into a retreat, as they considered their next tactic. Finally after some discussion a plan was settled on, and they prepared for the right moment to strike

"Here we go! CHARGE!"

As Asuka swung herself up into position, she noticed that sky was visible from the hole in the roof of the shaft, and the flow of acid had stopped. While the implications of this began to sink in, the other two children, Rei Ayanami and Shinji Ikari continued with the plan, Rei dropping to the bottom of the shaft and grabbing the gun, and throwing it up to Shinji as he got into position to fire.

"Asuka, get out of the way!" roared Shinji, and opened fire.

Shinji's volley of fire tore up through the hole in the roof, and into the sky, where he expected it to shred Matarael.

But it didn't hit Matarael.

It didn't hit Matarael, because at this point, Matarael was already a couple of miles away, flying end over end through the air, wondering what the HELL had just happened, and feeling like someone had just kicked it right in the...

"AND THE KICK IS GOOOOOOD!" screamed Jamie, as Megas sprinted to where Matarael had crashed, rolled over a few times, and now lay there curled up in a ball, twitching violently.

"What? I didn't smash him, so what's the problem?" Coop smirked, cutting off any smashing-related comment from a frowning Kiva.

"You might want to look at Megas's foot." came the reply.

Looking down, Coop could see that paint had been stripped off, where he'd kicked Matarael.

"What the hell? How the hell did that happen? I just waxed that yesterday!" he yelled.

"It appears to have some sort of acid for blood, or that's maybe that's what it was excreting." Kiva mused.

"Acid for blood? What, do we have to worry about facehuggers now?" Jamie at this point was scanning round nervously. "I mean, wasn't Regis Philbin some sort of deranged robot, not an Alien?"

"Correct", Kiva admitted, "Whatever this thing is, it isn't the R.E.G.I.S. Five, but I don't know what it is".

Coop, with a smirk, said "We might not know what it is, but we know what we can do to it."

Kiva, feeling she knew what the answer was already, yet still felt she had to ask what he had in mind.

"We're going to smash it."

Kiva shook her head, as she knew that was what Coop had in mind. "Don't you think that's a bad idea? It has acid for blood, you really want to get close to it?

"But, but..."

Kiva then played her trump card "Think of the paintwork."

Conceding her point, Coop came to a decision, "Okay, we could simply hit it with some missiles, but why take chances, right?" as he hit the Even More Missiles button. Matarael didn't stand a chance. Dozens of missiles came spewing out from the blue thing that had so callously mistreated it, and still dazed, was unable to bring up its AT-Field in time, before the missiles impact and detonation.

Matarael's last thought was something along the lines of "This blows chu-" before being blown into lots of little chunks.

Back on Megas, Coop high fived Jamie. "That was pretty easy."

"Don't you think it was a little too easy? When was the last time we beat someone that easy without them making a comeback?" cautioned Kiva.

"She's right, dude." Jamie acknowledged.

Coop nodded. "Okay, we'll make sure." Looking round him, he saw something and had an idea. "Oh yeah, we'll make sure, and we'll have a smashing time while doing it."

Kiva just groaned.

Back in the city, the three Evangelions had reached the surface, but their target was nowhere to be found. Asuka quickly decided their next course of action, "Okay, since we still have no word from Misato or the bridge bunnies, we'll split up and search. I'll go this way, Baka, you go that way, and Wondergirl, you take that area. If either of you two find it, let us know, and do not engage until the rest of us get there. if I find it, I'll let you know after I've destroyed it. Now get going!"

Shaking his head, Shinji moved out in the direction he was ordered. As he crested a rise, he could see something blue moving in the distance, so he headed in that direction. As he approached, he realised it was bigger than anything the JSSDF had, and appeared to be moving up and down slightly. Puzzled, as he knew there wasn't supposed to be anyone or anything in the area apart from the Angel, he moved in closer. He then saw what looked like a robot making some strange movements or something. it appeared to be lifting a shipping container up and smashing it down repeatedly, on something small and... waitasec... was that..?

All Shinji could say was "Umm..."

Almost as soon as he said it, Asuka's face flickered onto his screen. "What is it? Have you spotted it? Where is it? And don't even think about attacking it on your own or else I'll..."

Rei's image then appeared. "Pilot Soryu, would you refrain from your ministrations and allow Pilot Ikari to actually inform us of his situation?"

"Don't you tell me what to do Wondergirl! Don't you ever presume to tell me what I should and shouldn't do!"

"I was simply..."

Mesmerised by the sight in front of him, Shinji had begun to tune out the two voices which were staring to give him a headache, when the blue robot turned towards him. All he could think was "Did Misato park that car on top of it?"


	2. Chapter 2

Egged on by Jamie, Coop was doing his best to pound what was left of Matarael into a greasy spot, when Kiva spotted Unit-01. "Coop, look behind you". Jamie and Coop turned around to see something purple and green. And taller. Quite a bit taller. And ugly as hell.

And looking straight at them. While apparently scratching its head.

"Uhh...anyone else think it looks like somebody crossed Barney the Dinosaur with a Michael Bay Transformer on steroids, or is it just me? And maybe more importantly, did we just smash that thing's pet spider?" Jamie managed to get out. As he said this, he could feel the earth shaking, and a rumbling as two more of the things, a red one and a blue one came running at them. "I really, really, hope that we didn't just-" only to be cut off by Kiva.

"What are they? They look like some sort of mechs, but they also look alive."

"I don't think it's the Glorft." chipped in Jamie, "They're ugly enough, but they only seem to produce the one colour of paint in the Glorft Interdimensional Olive Drab Paint Factory - these guys use some primary colours. Though they could just be colour blind.

Even Coop was silent. He knew there was only one thing that needed to be said. So he said it. In a terrible approximation of an Austrian accent. "You are one ugly mother -OWW!" as a snackbox thrown by Kiva hit him in the back of the head.

"Shut up Coop! Don't provoke them, at least until we know if they're hostile or not. Now, no threatening moves, okay? We're on their turf, remember?" Kiva pointed out, all the time not taking her eyes off the Evas.  
"Okay, okay, okay. I get it Kiva, but there was no need for that." came the reply, followed by an excited "Hey, there's still some jerky in the snackbox!". Kiva just rolled her eyes.

It was at that point, a girl's voice came over the communicator. "-ho the hell are you?"

As Shinji and whatever the small blue robot was eyeballed each other, his teammates arrived on the scene. "What the hell is that thing? It looks like something a child would have made!" mused Asuka. "It's painted like something you'd see in a Cartoon Network reject! And why the hell is there a car on top? Is this got something to do with Misato?"  
"Why are you asking me? How would I know? You know as much as I do!" retorted Shinji.  
"Who said I was asking you, Third Child. You never know anything do you, and when you admit as much you always follow it with one of those ridiculous apologies!"  
"Sor-"  
"GAAAAAAHH! JUST. SHUT. UP!"  
"I still cannot get in contact with Nerv Headquarters", Rei interrupted, "I can only assume the power situation has still not been resolved."  
Asuka took this on board. "Okay, so HQ's still incommunicado, but the Angel is down, yes?"  
Rei thought for a second. "I think it is safe to assume that, Pilot Soryu. There does not appear to be any activity, whoever is piloting that robot appears to have neutralised the angel. I am not familiar with the design, however. It is smaller than the Jet Alone, I do not know how it could have defeated the Angel though. Perhaps we should make contact with the pilot?"

"Good idea. Let's find out what the hell's going on. Hey, you in the little robot! Who the hell are you?"

"She sounds human." Kiva reasoned.  
"She sounds pissed." Coop pointed out.  
"She sounds cute. And magical." Jamie added, only to be ignored by the others.  
Coop started to hit the side of the communicator. "Let's see if we can get picture as well as sound. Hello there!"

Asuka was wondering if the robot was capable of communication, when a comm window popped up. She was expecting some sort of pilot, or a professional soldier. All she could see was a double, no, triple chin, and what looked like some sort of hideous beard with.. with... something (were those crumbs?) in it, and a lower part of a mouth roaring "Hello there!"  
"Oh, dear God!" she screamed and involuntary jumped back. In response, Shinji and Asuka stepped back and got into combat positions. "Are you alright, Asuka?" asked Shinji.  
"Y-yeah, of course I am, why do you think otherwise? Just got a bit of a surprise. Nothing I can't handle."

Back in Megas, Kiva looked at the communicator. "Coop, you've got the camera pointed too low, and zoomed in too much. Hang on a sec... there. That should do it. Try talking to them now."  
Coop acknowledged Kiva with a nod. "Thanks. Okay, here goes again. Hello there!"

Asuka shook her head at the fat guy talking to her on the screen. Questions racing through her head. This guy is piloting that robot? Was this someone's idea of a joke? Why was there something familiar about his voice? Finally she replied. "This is Evangelion Unit-02. Identify yourself immediately."

"I'm Coop! And this is, uh, hang on a sec" came the reply, and as the camera moved drunkenly round, two other faces came into shot. One a redheaded girl and then something pale and inhuman... "This is Kiva, and that's Jamie."  
Asuka could hear a "Heeeelll-oooooo" that made her skin just crawl.  
"Oh-okay. Well, what are you doing here? Don't you know this is a restricted area by order of the UN and NERV?" and as she was speaking, she realised what was so familiar. She'd heard the accents before.

Americans.

She tuned back in to what this Coop character was saying... "- to sort out the EZ-Pass, but since that little accident befell the Newark office, we were heading down to Camden and took a bit of a wrong turn. We're in Japan, right? Um, we didn't know that this was restricted, and uh... we're sorry about your spider."

Asuka was now starting to develop a headache. Was this what Misato felt whenever her and Shinji had a spat in the apartment? "Hold on a second, Did you just say you're sorry about our spider? OUR SPIDER? What the hell do you mean by that? Don't you know that was an Angel? And you killed it!"

Naturally enough, this statement had a predictable result. "An Angel? We killed an Angel? Oh no. We are so going to go to Hell now" yelled Jamie, blessing himself. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, I tried to stop them! Please forgive me God!"  
Kiva shushed him. "Angels? What kind of angels look like that? Acid filled spiders?"

"Seriously, are you a moron, or just pretending to be one? What do you mean what kind of angels look like that? What, are you stupid or something? They're trying to destroy the world - they're called Angels, don't ask me why they got called that, and anyway, how the hell do you not know about them?"

"Uhh, we're tourists?"

In Nerv HQ, power was being restored, much to the relief of everyone, well, everyone apart from possibly the two people who had been stuck in an elevator when the power went out, and who then found themselves in a rather compromising position when the lights came back on, and the elevator doors opened. Picking herself up from where she'd fallen in the elevator, Misato Katsuragi, the purple haired NERV Operations Director, ran to the bridge. "Report! What's going on up there? Have we re-established communications?"  
"Yes, we have, but something strange is going on", came the reply from Shigeru Aoba.

"The Pattern Blue is gone. Rei's filling us in, we have her on speaker."

"-appears the Angel has been neutralised, but I am unable to say how it was done. There does not appear to be much left of it, and what remains has been mashed into the ground. Pilot Soryu is currently conversing with the pilots of the robot which apparently killed the Angel. Pilot Ikari is also with us. We are all functional, though some repairs may be required to Unit-02 as a result of the Angel's attack. Furthermore, I have reason to believe that the robot is from the United States of America. Do you have any additional orders?"

"Americans?" The word hit like a gunshot on the bridge. "What the hell are they doing here?" Misato asked nobody in particular. Unsurprisingly, she didn't get a response.

In a darkened office, two men were also listening into Rei's report. One, a tall elderly man looked at the man who was seated. "Americans... I wasn't expecting this." he said. The other, a younger man wearing dark glasses, pushed his glasses up his nose slightly. "This was unforseen. What could have caused SEELE to depart from their agenda to allow this intervention to happen? We need to be very cautious - those old men had their plans set in stone, and now they allow this to happen? Something is up, Fuyutsuki. And I don't like that. We'll have to find out what our American friends have planned. That power failure was no coincidence, either. I wouldn't put it past them to have set all this up as a distraction to keep us occupied while they infiltrated personnel into the base. Inform Section-2 that they are to conduct intensive sweeps of the area, and investigate that power loss"  
Kozo Fuyutsuki nodded at Gendo Ikari. "It will be done." After a momentary silence, he spoke again." Ikari, Do you think this may affect the scenario?"  
Gendo Ikari merely tented his hands, staring at the screen.

Back on the surface, the tension had eased somewhat as both sides were having little conferences of their own. "I think they're the good guys, Asuka" whispered Shinji. "Why would they have destroyed the Angel otherwise, right? We probably don't need to fight them."  
Of course Asuka dismissed his thoughts, "What would you know? Do you know any Americans, do you?"  
"Well weren't you born in America or something?" came the reply.  
"Don't be a smartass. Now shut the hell up and let me do the talking."  
"Sorry."

On Megas, Kiva and Coop were about to reach the same conclusion, when another communication came in. A purple haired woman this time. "This is Captain Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director of NERV, state your identity, unit and purpose."  
Coop replied "As I was telling the redheaded chick, my name's Coop, these guys are Jamie and Kiva. We don't have any purpose, we just took a wrong turn and-"

Over the radio came a yell. "Redheaded chick? Just who the hell do-" before Misato interrupted her. "Butt out Asuka. Now once again, state your full identity and purpose. What's your unit? What branch of the United States Armed Forces are you with?"

"Chill, lady. We're not with the military, we're civilians. As I said, we just took a wrong turn in Jersey. We're trying to get to Camden, I don't know how we ended up here." Hearing that last bit, Kiva suppressed a snort.

Misato was starting to get frustrated. "Sure you are. You really expect us to believe the United States would allow such weapons to be in the hands of civilians. I want answers. Why are you here?"

"Hey, you ever hear of the Second Amendment? The right to bear arms? My uncle legally owns a bunch of anti-aircraft weaponry for hunting squirrels and magpies and gets his groceries in an ex-Soviet main battle tank. My buddy Goat also built himself a robot. Besides, this robot's for self-defense. And car shows."

Misato was about to let the fat fool have it when Shinji popped up. "I really think he's telling the truth, Misato. What army would let someone that size join? And surely a military robot wouldn't be painted up like that, would it?"

Asuka, not to be outone, had to chip in. "What did I tell you, idiot? You don't know what you're talking about. Let the adults talk."

To which Misato snapped "Good idea Asuka, let the adults talk. That means shut up. BOTH OF YOU!", wiping off the smug smirk that was growing on Asuka's face.

Coop looked at Jamie. "Did you hear that kid?" Then, putting on a whiny voice, "What army would let someone that size join? I save their butts and they repay me by calling me fat."  
"Dude, you are fat."  
"Kiva, can you remind me why I keep Jamie around?"

Just then, another communication window opened. Misato was about to unleash a stream of invective at whoever it was when she saw Gendo Ikari. "Sir, I-"  
"It's all right, Captain, you're doing a satisfactory job, considering the circumstances." came the calm reply. "I think we should ask our visitors for a meeting, and try to clear up some matters. Be friendly and see what we can learn about what they're up to."  
"Yes, sir.." she replied, as Gendo's image disappeared.  
"All right, Mr. Coop, we're going to have a face to face talk, and you will give me answers." Turning to the blonde scientist beside her, Misato wearily nodded. "Rits, I know the power still isn't fully restored, but since their batteries are nearly done, and it looks like the Angel is gone, I think we should start retrieving the pilots. Start with Shinji, I'd rather keep Asuka and Rei keeping their eyes on these guys a little longer"  
"Is that wise? Asuka's all fired up, and she's missed out on another Angel kill."  
Misato shrugged. "Rei'll keep her in line." to be met by Akagi rolling her eyes.

Up in Megas, Coop was nonplussed. "No problem, you want us to meet you guys wherever, or you guys coming here?"

"Units -00 and -02 will escort you to the meeting point. We'll join you there." came the reply. "Rei, bring them to Access Point 23."

"Understood."

Megas followed the two Evas to what looked like a some sort of bunker. "We will wait here. Captain Katsuragi will be along presently" Rei informed them.  
Behind them, Unit -01 was descending on some sort of platform.

Eventually Misato made it to the surface, she walked outside and was taken aback by the sight that greeted her. That was the crew that curbstomped an Angel? A fat guy who looked to be a hamburger away from cardiac arrest, a skinny guy who looked as pale as Rei, if not paler and a redheaded woman who at least seeemed to treating the situation with the seriousness it deserved. As she got closer. she could hear the fat guy studying the foot of the robot and moaning about something to do with having to redo paintwork. "Right, be friendly, he says. Easy for him in his darkened lair. Oh well Misato, game face on, and let's find out just what the hell is going on."

"Hello and welcome to Tokyo-3, Mr. Coop" Misato said, offering a hand to Coop. "I'm sorry for being a little unfriendly earlier. The citywide power outage followed by an Angel attack that we weren't really prepared for was a little stressful. Thank you for your timely intervention."

"No problems, captain... glad to help. Uhh...about your power outage, I think... uh... we might have been sorta responsible for that."

"Really?" came the deadpan reply. "And how did that happen?"

"Well, we uh, had a weapons malfunction... kinda reactor leak... but everything's fine now. Sorry about the damage."

Misato narrowed her eyes. "Weapons malfunction slash reactor leak? That sounds a little ominous."

Coop gulped "Well, technical difficulties really. We got it sorted and it's not going to happen in the future"...especially after I re-convert the damn thing to a fridge, he thought to himself. "Just the power surge may have caused a sort of EMP that knocked your electrical system off for a bit. I hope there's no permanent damage".

Watching in his office, Gendo raised an eyebrow. "Interesting, Kozo. they're not even denying their role in the power outage. While they seem to trying to play up to the stereotype of the Idiot American, what's left of that Angel proves otherwise. We'll have to check into this fellow's background." He then turned back towards the screen, as Misato was talking again.

"So, Mr. Coop, could you please introduce me to the rest of your crew and their titles, if any?"

"I'm Harold Cooplowski, but just Coop will do, Captain. This is Jamie, no title", Jamie facepalmed. "And this is uh, Commander Kiva Andru."

Turning to Kiva and saluting, Misato asked her, "Commander Andru? Are you the ranking officer then ma'am? Though I didn't know that the US Navy were involved."

Kiva grimaced a little at this. "Sorry Captain, I'm ex-military. Commander was my former rank."

"So you were US military, then?"

"More like Earth Coalition." muttered Jamie.

Somewhat confused, Misato pressed for more. "Earth Coalition?" I haven't heard of them, are they some new UN outfit or something?

Kiva heard Jamie trying to suppress a snicker, and squaring her shoulders looked at Misato and took a deep breath. "The reason you haven't heard of the Earth Coalition is because they don't exist yet, and won't for the best part of a thousand years."

You could have heard a pin drop. Dropping the military formality, Misato looked Kiva in the eye. "Bullshit."

Kiva looked Misato in the eye and simply said "I wish."

Looking at Gendo Ikari, few people would have noticed any difference in his demeanour. However, Kozo Fuyutsuki was one of those. "Are you alright, Ikari? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Gendo took off his glasses, rubbed his nose and looked at Kozo. "You heard what she said. She's from the future. A thousand years or so in the future. It may be assumed that robot is from the future too. It appears to be infinitely more capable than anything humanity has right now - it obliterated an Angel without any need of an AT field. You know what this means?"  
Nodding his head, Kozo spoke the words Gendo did not want to hear or say.

"Humanity will continue to exist, as a technologically advanced civilisation that is made up of individuals. The Human Instrumentality Project has failed. So what do we do now?"  
"Right now? I honestly don't know. First thing, we cannot allow SEELE to know of this. there's no telling how they will react. Kihl may not be able to restrain them more erratic members. And we need to get as much information from these people. Surely they will know what the next thousand years will bring, but we also need to know why they have such little knowledge of the Angels. There are some things that don't add up though. This Coop fellow said they were civilians, yet she's says she's future ex-military? What does that make her, CIA? "  
"I don't know. But I will find out."  
"I assume, Kozo, you have the same source in mind as I do for this task?"  
"You know me too well Gendo, I think Mr. Kaji will enjoy finding out the truth in this situation. Especially if it distracts him from his normal activities ."

As Misato was desperately trying to think of another question for Kiva, a strange gurgling rumble could be heard.  
"Oops, that was me" Coop admitted, "I sorta skipped lunch today."  
"Okay, we can take a break, continue after lunch if you will. We have a canteen a couple of levels down, with a very good menu. If you'll follow me." Misato turned and headed for the entrance.

"Cool, do you do Kobe burgers?"

As they went inside, Jamie elbowed Coop. "Dude. Weapons malfunction, reactor leak? What was next? Shoot them and say the conversation was getting boring and run off to save the princess?"  
Coop grinned. "What was I supposed to say? I hit a button wrongly labelled by Evil Me?"  
"He didn't wrongly label it, you put the label on it without checking that it did the same thing as old Megas."  
Kiva was next. "What the hell did you mention my rank for? You want them to think we're crazy? We don't need them knowing about Megas or my origins."  
Screwing up his eyes, Coop nodded. "Yeah, I messed up, I just thought the way Lil Miss Military was on about titles, and the fact she thought we were a bunch of losers, mentioning you technically outanked her might throw her. Sorry."  
Kiva acknowledged it with a nod of her head. "Accepted, but we'll have to be very careful what we tell these people. there's just something about this place that seems off. How come we haven't heard about Angels or these huge things? Especially given the way you attract all these off world horrors? And Tokyo-3? I've never heard of that."  
"Maybe it's the codename for their base?" wondered Jamie. "And when did any military allow chicks with purple hair to command stuff?"  
"I don't know - if this base is called Tokyo-3, then what's that city - it's far too small to be Tokyo, but why would..."  
"Hey, maybe it's like Jersey, after all, nobody there thinks anything's weird about robots and aliens anymore. Maybe this stuff is just day to day stuff as far as they're concerned. It's Tuesday, therefore we get the giant acid filled spider kaiju attack, Wednesday means it's the magical girl attack, and so on!"

As they walked down a corridor, a door opened and Coop could see a young boy in what looked like a school uniform, looking through the doorway at him. Misato saw him, and motioned for him to come out. Turning to Coop, she declared. "Coop, Jamie, Kiva, I'd like to introduce you to Shinji Ikari, pilot of Unit-01 - the purple and green Eva you saw earlier. Shinji, this is Coop, Jamie and Kiva, the crew of Megas."

Shinji was in the process of bowing to them, only to have his hand grabbed and shaken vigorously by Coop. "You pilot that huge ass robot all by yourself? That is awesome!"  
Misato grinned as she watched Shinji turn bright red, and even redder when Kiva shook his hand with a smile, saying she was glad to meet him. Jamie merely nodded to him.

Just then, another door flew open, and what could only be described as a red plugsuit clad force of nature breezed into the corridor. "So you're the pilots of that robot? Consider yourself lucky, you've just met the great Asuka Langley Soryu, pilot of the ultimate production model, Unit-02, and the greatest pilot in Nerv."  
Kiva and Coop just stared at her, though Kiva did push Jamie's lower jaw back up into a closed position.  
"Wooooaaaahhhh..." was all Jamie could say, though drool might have been the more appropriate word.

"So you really are the pilot of that robot? How the hell do you fit in it?" Asuka asked, ignoring Misato and Coop staring daggers at her. Turning to Kiva, she shook hands, asking, "Shouldn't you be in charge, you seem to be more, well, suitable. Us redheads do make for superior beings after all." Kiva, open mouthed just stared, turning to Jamie, Asuka stopped. Jamie was looking at her, yes, but not at her face, and with a look that could be described as stooge-esque. "Are you enjoying the view?" she condescendingly asked, however she didn't expect the reply she got.

"Oh yeah, enjoying it, yep, keep doing what you're do-"

SMACK.

"You disgusting pervert! You're just as depraved as that little hentai creep over there!" Asuka yelled, pointing at a stunned looking Shinji. "Where the hell do you get off treating women as mere objects? You-" only to be yanked away by Misato.  
Turning crimson with anger, she let Asuka have both barrels. "Pilot Soryu. Remove yourself this instance. How dare you assault a guest! You're lucky I don't have you arrested for this."  
As Asuka stormed off, ranting about creepy perverts, Misato turned to Jamie, who was rubbing his cheek, and trying to shake the stars from his vision. "Please allow me to express my deepest apologies for that outburst, I'll ensure she is disciplined for that."

Misato was confused to see Kiva and Coop sniggering between themselves, "Oh it's okay, Captain, this is just another addition to The Bumper List of Places Jamie's Been Smacked in the Kisser - it's kind of tradition if you know what I mean", Coop said, laughing.  
Even though she hadn't the slightest clue, Misato allowed a wan smile to appear on her face, but all she could think was how these people were just weird.

Shinji, unsurprised by the outburst, went over to Jamie. "I'm sorry about that, she can be a nice girl, but she does have an extremely short temper."  
"No kidding", came the deadpan reply, "pretty powerful swing too, I'd give her 7 out of 10 for that smack. What about the purple haired chick? She got some ninja death punch skills too, I suppose?"

"M-Misato-san? She's nice, but I wouldn't piss her off either."

Rolling his eyes, Jamie moaned. "So basically, every female here is a violent maniac? Wonderful. I'm doomed."

"No, you'll be okay" Shinji reassured him, "Just keep your head down, and don't say anything that could be construed as being offensive, tell them you're sorry and you should be fine. It works for me most of the time."

"Easy for you to say." Jamie snarked back at him. "Besides, if I was to try that, my friends would think there's something wrong with me. Getting the occasional smack goes with the territory, I guess."

"You mean... you mean you have no problem with getting hit all the time?" Shinji stared at him. "That's just weird."

Jamie thought for a second, and shook his head, "No, I do have a problem with it, I try to avoid it, but occasionally it happens - hell I'm one of those guys who just can't resist trying to get a good one-liner in, doesn't always have the desired effect though. Actually, that happens more often than not, really. Think of it like, say an occupational hazard. And as you pointed out, you do your little apologising church mouse thing, but it still doesn't work all the time, does it? And I think most people actually don't want to hear someone apologising to them all the time. So if you're going to get clobbered, may as well make it something worth getting clobbered for. But it still sucks."

"That... kind of makes sense... in a strange sort of way" thought Shinji, as he nodded at Jamie.

"I have my moments." smirked Jamie.

Just then a voice spoke up behind them causing Jamie to jump. "Pilot Ikari, you are to follow me to-"

"Wh-where did you come out of?" squawked Jamie.

"Through the door, and along the corridor to here. There are no other avenues of access I could have used." Rei replied evenly.

Folding his arms, Jamie looked at her. "Riiight, and we just didn't happen to hear you creeping up behind us."  
"You and Pilot Ikari were involved in a conversation, and as a result I can only assume your attention was solely upon him, therefore my approach was unnoticed" was the matter-of-fact reply.

"And who exactly are you anyway" was Jamie's next question.  
Shinji decided to intervene now. "Oh, this is the pilot of Eva Unit-00, Rei Ayanami."

"Oh, okay, nice to meet you, I'm Jamie" he said, extending his hand. "Interesting hair by the way, you one of those cosplayer types?"  
Rei didn't acknowledge the handshake. "Pilot Ikari we are required elsewhere." She then turned and walked off.

"It was nice to meet you Jamie, but I have to go with her. Uhh, thanks for the advice, and hopefully we'll meet again. Goodbye." and with that Shinji went after Rei.

As he jogged to catch up with Coop, Kiva and Misato, the first thing that went through his head was "Did Commander Data have a blue haired daughter?"


	3. Chapter 3

"You guys have pretty good food here." Coop mumbled, between bites. "Word of advice, slushies will go down a treat here."  
Beside him, Jamie and Kiva were just drinking water, while Ritsuko and Misato sat across from them.  
"Uhh yeah, thanks, nothing but the best for the saviours of the planet, yadda yadda. Okay, sorry, but we need to get down to business. I will ask you about your mech's capabilities later, but the first thing I want to know how did you get here?" asked Misato. "Before you 'accidentally' knocked out our power, we saw no sign of you on our early warning or radar systems. It's like you just popped up out of nowhere."  
Grimacing, Coop nodded. "Yeah, it's weird, one minute, we're driving through Jersey, next thing we're well, here, wondering where here was."  
Picking up on Coop's nervousness, Misato looked at him. "Bit of a wrong turn wouldn't you say? From New Jersey to Tokyo-3, that's a long way out of they way for you."  
"About that, Captain," Kiva interrupted, "What exactly do you mean by Tokyo-3. I assume that's the name of your base. But what's that city out there?"  
Raising an eyebrow, Misato paused for a second. "What do you mean what's that city out there?That IS Tokyo-3. Wow. I'd heard things about Americans and their lack of knowledge about foreign geography - I didn't think them to be true."

Kiva's jaw dropped.

Coop cleared his throat. "Well, since we appear to be typically lost American tourists, when we're done here, can you at least direct us to regular Tokyo, or Tokyo-1 or whatever you guys call it?"

This time it was Misato's jaw to drop. Along with everybody else's in the room, as the temperature seemed to drop precipitously.

"Are you trying to be smart?" Misato was suddenly all businesslike, any warmth drained from her voice.  
"What?" came Coop's confused reply.  
"Something is really wrong here." Kiva muttered.  
"You know damn well that Tokyo is no more." There was danger in Misato's voice now. Angry looks from everyone else in the room.  
"What?" Coop was getting even more confused.  
"Are you trying to claim that you don't actually know that Tokyo was nuked in the Impact Wars?"

"Impact Wars? What the hell was that? Some new Marvel movie?"

At this, Misato was suddenly on her feet, jabbing her finger at Coop. "Okay, Mister Cooplowski, if that is your name. What the hell kind of game are you trying to play? You appear out of nowhere. You take down our power grid. You defeat an Angel easier than I've seen any other angel defeated, almost too easy, in fact. You claim you don't know of the Impact Wars. What next, you never heard of Second Impact? Are you going to say you've been hiding under a rock the past 15 years or been in a coma or something? Is this some sort of CIA crap? Well? I want answers, and I want them now."  
Jamie leaned over to Coop. "Considering how well your last Han Solo impression went down, I wouldn't advise saying anything about being in carbonite." he whispered, drawing a look of utter contempt from Misato.  
"Is that what you think this all is? Some kind of big joke?" By now she was in Jamie's face, and Jamie was getting ready for another smack.  
"No ma'am. Sorry, not at all. Sorry. Please don't hit me."

It was Kiva who spoke next. "Pardon me, Captain, but I think I may have an idea what has happened. This will probably sound like a stupid question, but what year is it here?"  
"2015" was the terse reply. After all, 'Commander' you claim you're from the future, what happened, these events somehow fail to make it into your history books or something?"

"But it's 2015 for us too" Kiva agreed. "Yet we have no knowledge of these events. Nothing even remotely resembling any of these things have happened where we... came... from." Turning to Coop, and folding her arms, she speared him with an angry stare. "You did it again."  
"Did what again?" came the nervous reply.  
"You managed to take Megas into a parallel dimension, only this time you took Jamie and myself! That's what!" She facepalmed. "Why do I keep letting myself get into these situations?"  
Once again, jaws in the room dropped, Ritsuko's more than anyone else's.

"Oh... OH. Sorry guys. But I didn't know that would happen - it wasn't like the last time when I dimension hopped."

Jamie couldn't help himself. "At least you didn't take Gorath with you this time, these guys would have freaked out royally."  
Coop had to grin at that. "True."  
Misato, all of a sudden finding herself on the periphery of a conversation which had just taken a 90 degree turn from reality and was getting more and more confused, decided she needed more information. "Waitasec, you claim you're from another dimension? How the hell do you expect me to believe that's even remotely possible?"

At this point, Ritsuko decided to add her two cents. "Well Misato, there have been theories about parallel universes for years, how each action can have different results, and each possibility can casue a new universe to branch off. The laws of probability would suggest there's probably a universe in which you became a devout nun, campaigning for the prohibition of alcohol.", adding that last line with a smirk, which grew to a grin as she watched the mouthful of coffee Misato had just taken end up all over the table.

Turning back to Kiva and wiping her chin with a tissue, Misato asked "If what you're saying is true, then Second Impact hasn't happened on your Earth?"  
"Nope, nothing like that whatsoever. We've never even heard of the term Second Impact." Kiva admitted. "What exactly happened?"

"In 2000, an small meteor travelling at almost the speed of light struck Antarctica, the entire ice cap melted, and the resulting shock waves, tsunamis and sea level rise wiped out a couple of billion people. The political instability and the resulting wars for the remaining resources that followed killed another billion. That was when Tokyo got nuked, towards the end of that period. We've slowly been trying to rebuild humanity, but it's been hard. As of now the population of the Earth is around 3 billion. And the remainder of us, we are now living on a planet where the ecology has been smashed, where the climate is on the fritz so bad we've had a permanent summer for years, and to top it off, are now facing the threat of extinction caused by the extraterrestrial threat we've called the Angels. You've met one, and dealt with it, for which we are grateful, don't get me wrong."

Misato's explanation was met with a stunned silence from the Megas crew, their faces white with shock.

Back in his office, Gendo was feeling considerably more upbeat than he had been twenty minutes earlier.  
Fuyutsuki didn't share in the optimism. "Parallel universes? This whole thing makes no sense. They can't be telling the truth, can they?"  
Gendo's response was measured. "It's an interesting theory, and I am aware of research into it, but the last I had heard, it was just purely theoretical. But if what they're saying is true, then whatever future Earth their commander is from, it's not ours. Which means the scenario is still valid, and we will continue as such."

"Are you sure you're not engaged in wishful thinking, that you're hearing what you want to hear?" Fuyutsaki cautioned him.  
"I don't think so Kozo. Judging by their reactions, this is all new to them, they genuinely don't seem to have any knowledge of our world. We will treat these visitors with due caution, and the investigation into their background will continue. if we find nothing, that should prove their claims. ."  
"Of course, if we find nothing, it could also mean they are not who they claim to be."  
"If so, then we shall deal with them appropriately, old friend. Now, about the Angel they defeated, what of it ?"

Looking at a sheet of paper, Fuyutsuki frowned. "Preliminary reports aren't clear on how the Angel was defeated - the lack of power meant the majority of our monitoring systems were down. Also, it seems that most of the remains were, and I quote, 'mulched'. Any core material we were hoping to salvage is gone. Of course Akagi hasn't had a chance to carry out a thorough investigation yet. Shall I get her on it?"  
"Do. What of Section-2's infiltrator hunt?"  
"Nothing so far, the only traces of anyone roaming round found were those of the pilots during the blackout. Shall I tell them to double their efforts?"  
"Yes, but I doubt they will find anything. I also expect Kaji to verify that these visitors were responsible for the power outages, as coincidental as the timing was. And make sure no word of our visitors gets out for a while, use the media to suggest it was the Evangelions that destroyed the Angel. We can take advantage of the lack of power to keep SEELE in the dark about this robot's abilities for a while, and then see if we can utilise it and its crew in any way."  
Raising an eyebrow, Fuyutsuki looked at Gendo. "Utilise them?  
"Of course Kozo, we will use every advantage given to us, whether it's from SEELE, the Angels, alternate universes, or from Fate herself."

"I'm truly sorry, Captain" Kiva finally spoke, "We honestly didn't know, as I said, nothing remotely like that has ever happened on our Earth. There have been the occasional threats to the planet but they were stopped."  
"What kind of threats?" asked Misato, finally beginning to accept these people had spoken the truth. "Anything like the Angels?"  
"Not like the Angels but quite a few extra-terrestrial threats, in our Earth, we've come under sporadic attack from an alien race called the Glorft. But they've been defeated everytime."  
"And pretty easily and quickly too," interrupted Coop. "The squids really aren't the brightest, but Gorath can be a stubborn ol'-" only to be cut off by an elbow to the gut from Kiva.  
"As I was saying. A couple of other entities have also attacked or tried to cause trouble. We also have made friends out in the wider galaxy. But the major threat-"

"Well, that maniac Captain Warlock considered you a friend. Haha-ouch." Jamie was silenced by a clip round the ear.

"As I was saying,the major threat to human life on our world tends to be other humans. The usual wars, terrorism and stuff. We've had physical catastrophes, like the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Japanese tsunami and the associated Fukushima meltdown, but nothing remotely near the level of what happened to you."

"And don't forget the entire Earth was threatened by that planet eater, but Coop saved the world by destroying it with diet soda and pop rocks." smirked Jamie.  
"Planet eater?" Ritsuko interrupted, rolling her eyes. "You expect us to believe that? And that you merely used pop rocks and diet soda? Everybody knows that's a pop culture myth. You're really going to have to try harder than that if you want us to believe your tales."  
"Fine, we'll just show you the footage then." Coop grinned. "Gotta warn you, it was messy, and the clean up bill afterwards was pretty big."

Watching the meeting on a screen, two of the three Eva pilots were visibly stunned by the revelations. Eventually, Shinji was the first to speak. "No Second Impact, no Angels, no Eva, their world must be amazing. I wonder if we exist there."  
Asuka elbowed him. "Well duh, of course we do. In fact I bet I'm probably a multi-millionaire over there with my looks and brains. She may not be an Eva pilot, but I just know their Asuka'll be a very important person over there."  
Looking pensive, Shinji thought for a few seconds. "I bet you're right. But I can't help but wonder if their world's version of me lives with his parents? If his mother is still alive, or did she die and his father abandoned him after her death too?" his voice trailed off.  
The smug feeling Asuka had at the start of Shinji's sentence quickly evaporated as he went on, his last few words left her feeling like she'd suddenly been punched in the gut. All she could think was "He was...him too?"  
Before she could say anything, Rei spoke. "I assume since there has been no Second Impact or Angels or Evas then I do not exist in their world."

"Wow, their world seems to be a real paradise then, doesn't it?" quipped Asuka almost automatically, but without her usual venom, as she was still thinking about what Shinji had inavertedly revealed.  
"Considering the fact that three billion people did not die, and that all their coastal areas are not under dozens of feet of water, it is safe to assume you are correct, Pilot Soryu." came the deadpan answer, as usual lacking any sort of reaction to Asuka's barbs.  
"Whatever, thanks for the affirmation, Wondergirl."  
"You are welcome Pilot Soryu."

The three visitors were having similar thoughts. Jamie was the first to voice the question. "I wonder if this world's versions of us are still alive?"  
"Where exactly in the United States were you from?" asked Ritsuko.  
"Jersey City."  
"That's the New York area, yes? Most of that's under multiple fathoms of water now. If you managed to get out before the tsunamis hit, then you had a chance, but most people perished. We could check for you, if you'd like."  
"I guess you could, if you want, but I wouldn't go too crazy trying to find out. I managed to encounter another me in another Jersey City once - he was a real jerk - had that whole Pinky and the Brain thing going on."  
"Pinky and what?"  
"You know, the cartoon - where the two lab mice kept trying to take over the world?"  
"Funnily enough, we haven't heard of such a thing."  
"Oh man, you don't know what you guys missed - it was a classic! Though it really jumped the shark when the makers decided to team them up with that annoying-"  
Rolling her eyes, Kiva decided it was time to get the conversation back on track. "Alright already, Coop, I think there's more important things to worry about - now that we've established where we aren't, how do we go about getting back to our own Earth?"  
"You mean you don't want to hang around and see the sights of our lovely Tokyo-3?" Misato had a wry smile on her face.  
"Thanks for the offer, Captain Katsuragi," Coop smiled, "But Kiva's right, we really should get back to our Earth. I still have an EZ-Pass bill to pay."  
"How do you plan on getting back?" asked Misato. "Since you don't know how you actually got here."  
Looking quite pleased with himself, Coop replied. "I have our home universe's co-ordinates saved, all I have to do is hit the return button, and Helloooo Jersey City! Simple."

Ten minutes later...

" 'All I have to do is hit the return button and Helloooo Jersey City! Simple.' Simple, he says. SIMPLE! I just knew something like this would happen. I just knew it." To suggest Kiva was not very happy would be something of an understatement.  
Jamie just shook his head in resignation, as Coop repeatedly alternated between pressing a button and thumping the console it was situated on. "I don't get it, it worked every other time! Why now?"  
"Why now? Oh, I don't know. Because you just went off and did a further modification to Megas and then used it, without actually taking time to test it properly? As per usual? And now you've got us in another dimension, with no idea of how yo get back. At least Evil You knew about other dimensions and how to access them. These people hadn't got a clue other dimensions even existed, and now we're stuck here. Stuck in a hell world, half the population are dead, the remainder are fighting for their lives."

Jamie chipped in. "Are you sure about that last one, it still seems nicer than Newark. Cleaner, too. "

Outside, Misato, Ritsuko were standing together and waiting for Megas to disappear.  
"Now that was a weird couple of hours. Thought we were in deep trouble when the power went out. Turned out okay, though."  
"Yep."  
"Those people are deranged, apart from the one called Kiva. I like her. She strikes me as competent as hell. And she's got that 'Mess with me and I rip your arms off vibe going.' Could use that in dealing with Kaji. "  
"Yep."  
"Hmm, didn't they say they should have gone by now?"  
"Yep".

"..."  
That's a lot of shouting going on up there."  
"Yep."  
"Do you think something's gone wrong?"  
"Yep."  
"You think they might be stuck here?"  
"Yep."  
"This is going to really complicate stuff, isnt it?"  
"Yep."  
"Wanna help deal with the fallout from this?"  
"Hell, no."  
"I need a beer."  
"Yep."


End file.
